I hate spam as much as the next person, but recent decisions by courts in Iowa and Virginia demonstrate how fear of technology (and justifiable annoyance) can force the legal system to impose fines and sentences that are grossly disproportionate to the harm caused by spammers.
This is not to defend or justify spammers, whose actions are at best deceptive, almost always annoying, generally illegal and frequently criminal. But when people who send e-mail are punished more harshly than those who commit war crimes in Rwanda, and are fined more than companies that destroy the environment, it's time to revisit our strategy.

A 21-year-old Michigan man was sentenced Wednesday to nine years in prison for breaking into the network of home improvement retailer Lowe's, the longest jail term ever handed out in the U.S. for hacking.

This article is the first of a two-part series that looks at the new generation of WEP cracking tools for WiFi networks, which offer dramatically faster speeds for penetration testers over the previous generation of tools. In many cases, a WEP key can be determined in seconds or minutes. Part one, below, compares the latest KoreK based tools that perform passive statistical analysis and brute-force cracking on a sample of collected WEP traffic. Next time, in part two, we'll look at active attack vectors, including a method to dramatically increase the rate of packet collection to make statistical attacks even more potent.

Few understand how tough it can be to lock down wireless networks better than Stephen Lewack, director of technical services and communications at Columbus Regional Healthcare System. Lewack is protecting a growing number of wireless devices throughout the Georgia hospital, which includes more than 400 in-patient beds, more than 200 long-term care beds, and a pharmacy.

Interlink Networks announced Tuesday that it has released version 2.0 of its LucidLink Wireless Security solution. The software now supports businesses with up to 250 wireless users working on Windows 2000 or Windows XP PCs.

It's no surprise that the issue that topped the Wi-Fi agenda in 2004 was the same one that's plagued it almost from its introduction. Security, or rather "lack thereof," was an inherent problem in WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy), the native security spec in the 802.11 IEEE standard.

I'm standing at the security guard's station. In the now-familiar corporate front-desk ritual, I sign the log book. The guard doesn't ask for my ID. I might have signed my own name, or I might have signed as Osama bin Laden, for all he knows. He doesn't look at what I'm carrying. He doesn't know or care about the camera phone in my pocket. Still, he hands me a paper sticker that says "Visitor" in red block letters. Armed with my badge of trustworthiness, I go on in. . . .